


From Then to Now

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Abuse, Getting Together, Minor Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8116003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: 1997 Lafayette - 1She holds Gilbert in her arms as her husband's coffin is rolled into the church. The sound of sobbing echoes across the high architectural ceilings and she thinks it could be her own but she isn't thinking clearly enough to recognize what she's doing and what she isn't.





	

_1997  
_  
_Lafayette - 1  
_  
She holds Gilbert in her arms as her husband's coffin is rolled into the church. The sound of sobbing echoes across the high architectural ceilings and she thinks it could be her own but she isn't thinking clearly enough to recognize what she's doing and what she isn't.

She is wearing black, one of the only women in the church to do so, and there's a striped carnation pinned over her heart. There's a matching carnation tucked into Gilbert's blanket.

She is only twenty-one and she is already a widow, and her son will never know what a great man he was, will never know who he was at all.

It is her sobbing. Some people are staring at her and others are whispering but none will ever say anything to her face. They'll apologize for her loss and tell her that if she needs anything to call them, but they don't mean it so she won't burden them.

One week after the funeral, she leaves Gilbert with her mother-in-law to go live with her father and doesn't plan to come back again.

_John - 2  
_  
Eleanor sits on the bench in front of her vanity, complete silence throughout her house. She stares at her own face in the mirror, dark curls let down past her shoulders, freckles covering her face. Her eyes are green like her son's, green like her mother's were.

Her son looks nothing like her father, and she does not know whether or not that's a good thing.

John's little footsteps are quick on the hardwood floors of their hallway, the quiet sound of his rapid breathing as he runs almost echoing against the walls of the house too big for the only three people that live there.

Shock runs through her body like a chill when she realizes that there's no heavier footsteps following him, which means nobody is watching him.

She runs out of her room, grabs him just before he attempts to run down the stairs that will not be gentle with him. She almost bursts into tears at how close it was, at how much better she needs to parent him. He's drooling on her shoulder but she doesn't care, can't care about anything else than the fact that her son is safe.

She carries John to his room, sits down in her rocking chair with him and cradles him until he falls asleep.

Everything she does is for him, she wouldn't survive if he didn't.

_Hercules - 4_

Summer is almost over and Hercules starts school for the very first time in three weeks.

He's sitting with Hugh in their kitchen at their dining table, listening with wide eyes as his brother tells him what awful things happen at school when he gets there. His brother speaks English more often than Irish Gaelic now, and Hercules knows that his mother asked him to and that he should start too, but he doesn't like how the words sound coming from his mouth. He doesn't even know why it's necessary.

"You're scaring him," his father says to Hugh in English after Hugh starts explaining the kinds of kids he's going to meet.

"Hercules is fine! He'll be fine, he's got me," Hugh tells his father, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling. Their dad smiles at him.

Hercules will be fine.

_Alexander - 2  
_  
Rachel watches as the man she loves chases James Jr. around their backyard. Alexander is sitting in her lap, reaching up and fiddling with her hair, tugging but not pulling. 

She thinks of it often, how much she loves her family. They ground her and despite everything and everyone she has to fight just for the right to one happy moment like this with them, they're worth it.

The wind blows and wind chimes ring gently through the air as the sun shines on them. James Sr. picks up their eldest son and laughs as James Jr. giggles. Alexander plops down on her lap and laughs because it's what his father and brother are doing so he wants to do it too. She laughs too, happy because her family is.

She hopes this never ends.

_1999_

_Hercules - 6_

Hercules has never been on an airplane before, and he never wants to be on one again. The whole plane shakes and he's holding onto his mother's hand for dear life.

He knows why there here, on a plane, a bajillion feet above ground, someone save him. They're moving to America, and his mother tells him that they might go back but Hercules doesn't believe her.

It gets dark on the plane and Hugh is asleep next to his father across the aisle and his mother is dozing off but Hercules can't even dream of it because he's scared he might never wake up.

He stays awake for hours, doesn't sleep until they're on the ground again where he almost passes out watching all the bags spin around on the spinning thing he doesn't know the name of. His mother scoops him into her arms and carries him and Hercules wishes he was back home again but he isn't and he has to learn to get over it.

"We just got here, honey," his mother tells him and he didn't know he said that out loud. He grumbles and turns further into her side.

"M'tired."

"Sleep then."

He does, falls asleep in his mother's arms before he can even protest.

_John - 5_

John clutches his father's hand as he walks into his mother's hospital room. She looks tired, her hair wet and clinging to her forehead. She has a bundle of blankets in her arms and she's looking at whatever's in it how she looks at John.

"Want to meet your new sister?" She asks him and John nods, gets lifted up onto the bed and climbs under his mother's arms and gets handed the bundle over his head.

"Her name is Martha," she says and John loves her.

"She's so small," John whispers and his mother laughs and kisses the back of his head.

She looks like him, like their mother. He's glad for that, their father has something about him that makes him look mean, John doesn't want Martha to grow up and be like their father. He doesn't want to grow up and be like their father. 

John is forced to leave the room after while so that his mother and his very small baby sister can sleep and John almost cries. He doesn't want to leave them, wants to protect his little sister and have his mother protect them.

He sits alone in the waiting room while his father fills out paperwork and doesn't think this is fair. He had to wait before this too, feels bad for his father because this is his second time doing this and John wants to scream.

He falls asleep in the uncomfortable hospital chairs really late at night and wakes up to his mother holding his small baby sister in her arms and being told that they're leaving to go home.

In the back of their car, John leans forward as much as his seatbelt allows him to and stares at Martha with wide green eyes and she stares back with the same green eyes and what looks like a smile. His mother sits in the backseat with them, smiling as she watches them.

"What are you doing?" She asks.

"She's _so_ small."

_Lafayette - 3  
_  
Lafayette doesn't have any parents.

The first time they say it, their grandmother drops the plate she was washing and it shatters in the sink. Lafayette flinches at the sound, thinks that they've done something wrong but their grandmother doesn't say anything.

"You have me, dear," she says in French, reaches her hand out to tap their nose and smile at them. They laugh and nod, skipping out of the room.

Lafayette has no memory of their parents, starts to figure out at a very young age that they don't really need them.

_Alexander - 4_

He runs down the hallway to go get his mother, doesn't think anything of it when he hears his father yelling until his mother starts screaming back.

Alexander tries to listen, but he can't understand. His mother has only just started teaching him French and he knows his father can't speak it but his mother is screaming it anyway and she's crying and Alexander knows he shouldn't be watching this but he's frozen to the spot and can't run away.

His father gets frustrated when he can't understand, so he starts screaming back in English but his accent is layered onto his words so thickly that Alexander doesn't think anybody would be able to understand him if they tried. 

Their argument is no longer an argument but it still looks like one because they're only making incoherent noises that sound like words but aren't but they're screaming them at each other with as much force as they can handle. His father has tears in his eyes and his mother has been crying and Alexander just has to run.

The first thing he understands after a long time is his father threatening to leave them. His mother stays silent, curls up, becomes smaller. He can't run now, the floors will creak, they'll hear him. 

"Alex," his brother whispers, grabbing his wrist and pulling him down their dark hallway.

"James, what's happening?" Alexander asks, and his brother just stares at him. Whether he knows and won't tell him or doesn't know but wants to, Alexander can't tell. 

Both of them are silent and James hugs him for lack of knowing what else to do and Alexander hugs back for the same reason.

_2001_

_John - 7_

His mother told him to stay in the kitchen.

John has had to do this before. He's told to stay in rooms while his mother leaves and he hears hushed whispers but doesn't understand the words they're saying and his mother comes back crying and holds Martha in one arm and hugs John with her other.

This time, it's screaming, and Eleanor yells something that sounds like the word help so John abandons the piece of paper he was drawing on and tip toes to the living room to see what's going on.

Henry is standing in the center of the room with his mother's hair in his hands and she's crying. Martha is in her crib facing away from them but she's crying too but John couldn't hear it over their screaming.

"Jack," his mother whimpers and his father looks back at him and there's something in his eyes that John is afraid of but his mother is still here and her hair is still being gripped in his hands.

"She told you to stay in the kitchen," his father says. He lets go of his mother's hair and she sobs when her body hits the floor and before he knows it, John is joining her.

His father hits him for the first time in his life. It stings like nothing he's ever known, heat digging into his skin and making him sick, constricts his throat and makes his stomach lurch. He starts crying and his father stares at the scene around him and just decides to leave it be, goes to his bedroom and slams the door shut.

His mother crawls towards Martha first, picking her up and rocking her until she quiets again. She slides across the floor to John with Martha still in her arms and holds him to her side.

"We're gonna be okay," his mother whispers. She says it over and over again like a prayer.

John isn't sure that it works.

Lafayette - 6

They find out about America when they're six. They know what it is, just like they know what other countries are, but they don't know what it's about.

America is new, shiny, like the glittery stickers their grandmother got them for their birthday. The land of the free, they say, and Lafayette wants more than anything to be there.  
  
" _Peut-être un jour_ ," she tells them, but she isn't looking, she's writing.

Lafayette thinks she understands, until she mentions that they can visit for a vacation and Lafayette shakes their head but doesn't mention it because they're not sure how their grandmother would react to them saying that they wanted to leave France.

" _D'accord_."

_Alexander - 7_

His mother introduces herself to someone as Mrs. Hamilton, and his father doesn't correct her, only smiles.

These aren't the people he sees at his home, the people who scream until their voices become hoarse and his mother doesn't speak to him for days on end because of how much her throat and his words burn her.

Those people want to be these people and Alexander wants them to be these people but he doesn't tell them because it will upset them and he can't do that.

His mother signs her name Rachel Hamilton on a paper and Alex reads it, doesn't say anything about it.

_Hercules - 8_

Hercules never knew he had an accent until one kid pointed it out and told him it was weird. He insisted that it wasn't, which just got him mocked by even more kids.

It bothered Hercules all day, so he tried to change it. Smooth out the letter sounds, pronounce words the way they're not supposed to be said in this stupid language.  
  
The accent Hercules ended up having was something in between faux-country and very thick accent of something that definitely is not Irish and never could be.

"What's going on here?" His mother asks when he's reciting his sentences he has to write out in cursive to himself in his new accent.

"I'm practicing," he says, and he has to repeat it a few times over because his mother can't understand what he's saying.

"Practicing what?"

"My accent."

"Why would you need to do that?"

"I need a new one."

"You accent is fine, leave it alone," his mother says, uses the voice that means she isn't kidding and possibly never will be about this.

"Okay," he mumbles, leaves his accent alone and doesn't let anyone say anything else about it.

_2005_

_Alexander - 10_

It's five in the morning.

Alexander walks down the hallway in the house, hand dragging across the walls to navigate his way to the kitchen. He's about to turn when the front door to his house opens and he almost screams until he sees that nobody is breaking in, someone is going out. 

It's his father, his father is going out.

He has a suitcase with him. 

"Dad?"

"Go back to bed, Alexander."

"But I-"

"Now."

Alexander does, he leaves without going into the kitchen, crawls back into his bed and falls asleep with the uneasy feeling in his chest.

The next morning his father isn't there, and his mother wakes up alone.

_John - 10_

John is getting another sibling, and, even as excited as he is, he's scared. Scared because of his father, what he'll do to this child once they get here.

His mother looks at him and Martha with happiness, with the smile John saw when Martha was first born and when he graduated kindergarten or when he gives her his report card. She looks at their father in the complete opposite way.

Henry hit Martha for the first time the other day and she still has the bruise.

John imagines he looks at their father the same way his mother does.

_Lafayette - 9_

Their grandmother is holding their hand in front of their father's grave. She can barely walk, Lafayette having to guide her there.

They understand death now, why they've never met their father. They wish they didn't, want to take back everything they thought about their father for not being there, hates themselves for ever saying those things, even if it was only to themselves.

There's a bouquet of flowers placed across his grave that neither of them had put there. They're fresh, not yet wilted or dying.

Striped carnations.

_Hercules - 11_

Hercules presses his face up against the window of their sunroom, watching as his brother and their friends laugh and talk about teenage things that he would never understand.  
It's Memorial Day, and for some reason his parents let Hugh throw a party at their house that Hercules was not invited to.

He doesn't care about that, though, Doesn't care about the fact that all of these people look older than they should, that they terrify him. None of it matters, because she's there.   
   
Elizabeth Sanders is one year older than Hercules and two years younger than Hugh. She's the youngest person at this party but she's cool so she can hang out with his brother and her friends without being seen as a child in their group.

He watches her jump off of the diving board into their pool but looks away when she gets out because he doesn't want to be creepy.   
   
However, him closing his eyes means he can't see Elizabeth walking out of their pool area and going into their sunroom. He almost screams when he sees her standing there.

"Where do you keep your soda?" She asks him. Hercules stares at her, stutters for a moment.  
   
"There's a blue cooler outside that should have soda in it," he explains and she thanks him and leaves.  
   
Hercules thinks she's beautiful.

_2006_

_John - 11_

This time, John takes his place as second in line as Martha is the first to hold their baby brother Henry Jr. and he's bitter.

He hates his name, but his mother has no trouble saying it so neither does he, normalizes that Henry is separate from his dad and they will not, under any circumstances, become the same person.

"He's so small," Martha whispers in disbelief, and John knows that his little sister is just like he is.

They may look like their mother, but Martha is like John and John isn't like anyone else because he makes sure of it.

_Alexander - 11_

Alex is sitting in a park when he hears two boys at around his age start talking about kids in a neighboring city that have contracted very bad fevers. One of them says a kid got his whole family sick and now they're in a hospital.

He rolls his eyes, flips the page in his book and continues reading.

They were probably lying. He has nothing to be worried about.

Right?

_Hercules - 11_

A girl in their grade has a crush on him, and Hercules doesn't like her back.

She isn't rude about it, she's nice to him so he's nice back, hugs him once and he hugged her back. They're friends, and she likes him, but they know they're friends and they don't need to be anything else.

A week after his whole class finds out about the girl's crush on him, the same boys that teased him for his accent start taunting him about the girl.

Hercules feels the words this boy says, both to him and his friend, hit him like a kick to the chest. They fill his chest with a burning feeling, reaching up into his throat and stinging his lungs.

He can see the boy screaming something at them, and then him laughing. Hercules feels his fists clench and then his hands flat against the boy's chest and he's pushing and then the boy is on the ground but Hercules can't remember seeing him fall.

A teacher sees the whole thing but doesn't hear it and Hercules is sent to the principal.  
   
The boy is sent away with the teacher and principal in his favor and Hercules leaves five minutes later as his principal picks up the phone and calls his mother.

_2007_

_Alexander - 12_

He had something to worry about.  
   
Him and his mother are drenched in sweat but they're both shivering. His mother looks worse than he does, but she clutches him to her body because she doesn't want him to be scared.  
   
Alexander doesn't care about himself now, is only worried about his mother. He knows she won't walk away from this, he knows that but he hopes it's not true. He doesn't know if he'll survive this or not, but he doesn't want to if his mother dies. 

Three nights ago, his mother stopped speaking English and she can no longer understand him when he speaks it. She's fading and he knows it, he knows it. He's being forced to watch it, and at the same time he doesn't want to be apart from her.

He hasn't seen James in two weeks, since he called an ambulance and they were sent here and haven't left.  
   
Alexander is fading too now, and he knows it, feels it rushing through him. He wants to give into it, because it feels like he's about to fall asleep. He just wants to fall asleep.  
   
He's about to, on the brink of death, when his mother is pulled from his arms and carried out of the room. He asks what's happening but none of the nurses tell him, just tell him to go to sleep. He does, pushes down everything else he's thinking and gives into the fatigue.  
   
The next morning, he wakes up.  
   
His mother doesn't.

_Lafayette - 11_

Their grandmother dies on a Sunday. The most amazing woman they've ever known has left their life forever, and the pain is almost unbearable to think about let alone feel.  
   
One week after that, a letter arrives in the mail for them from someone who claims to be their mother, requesting that Lafayette live with her and their great-grandfather.  
   
The first time Lafayette formally meets his mother, she greets them as if they actually are their child. She's crying and she hugs them and sobs of how it's been so long and how she's missed them.  
   
Lafayette does not know the woman hugging him, doesn't know her first name until their great-grandfather tells her to let them go.  
   
As time goes on, Lafayette finds a home in them, they once again become family and they are her child.  
   
They don't think that anything could ruin this for them.  
   
Both her and their great-grandfather die in April, three weeks apart from each other, and Lafayette can't help but feel like this was all a trick.  
   
They weren't supposed to have a relationship with their mother, that's not what fate intended for them, and they cannot fight that no matter how much they might want to.  
   
They're an orphan now, and despite their name and bloodline being one of the most famous in France, they have no family left.

John - 12  
   
He knows what this is. He's never felt it before, but he knows what this is.  
   
It's a crush. He has a crush on a boy in his class, and nobody can ever know. 

John is terrible at keeping secrets, both from himself and from others, so after two weeks of not being able to tell anyone in about this boy in his class and how he sits next to him in class now, he's one second away from exploding twenty-four hours a day.  
   
"This is what it's come to," he whispers as he sits in front of a stuffed teddy bear on his bed.  
   
He's always hated this teddy bear because his father gave it to him and everything his father touches is poisoned except for their family. Except for him.  
   
John stares at this bear and tells it all of his secrets because he has nobody else to whisper to.  
   
He's about halfway through telling it about how the boy asked him for a pencil the other day and John accidentally gave him the only one he had left, when he realizes his door is open.  
   
His door is open, and someone is staring in. Someone with green eyes.  
   
Too old to be Henry Jr., too tall to be Martha.  
   
His mother. It's his mother.  
   
"Mom," he whispers. She walks in, closes the door behind her and sits on his bed between him and the bear.  
   
"I am not mad at you, and I'm sorry for anything I have ever said to make you feel like I ever would be," is what she says to him. John almost breaks down crying, wanting more than anything for his father to just disappear so that they could be happy without him.  
   
"Okay," he chokes, tears falling down his face.  
   
"You can never tell him." She says 'him' like it's a curse word, something sour in her mouth. John nods, never planning to anyway, doesn't want to die yet.  
   
"I won't."  
   
"Good, dinner's almost ready." She kisses his forehead and leaves his room and John sobs before the door even clicks shut.

_Hercules - 13_  
   
He's sitting in the living room on the couch while his brother and his friends play some card game in their kitchen while he watches TV.  
   
Nobody is supposed to be here, and Hugh is supposed to be watching him, but their parents are out and Hugh only listens one fourth of the time, so his friends are there and one of them spills grape soda on the carpet and Hercules knows he's going to get blamed for it.  
   
His brother barely speaks to him now, and his mother tells him that they're both in that phase, but Hercules isn't. He wants to talk to his brother, to ask him how his life is and to be asked back. He wants Hugh's help with classes that are new to Hercules but old to him.  
   
Hercules wants to tell Hugh about his crush on Elizabeth Sanders no matter how much he'll get teased by him for it.  
   
Someone is whispering to Hugh and soon they're all doing it. 

"Hey, Hercules, do you want to play with us?"  
   
Everyone is staring at him, and Hercules feels the weight of their eyes like a car has been dropped on him.  
   
He responds with something that makes his brother shrug and return to playing. All of his friends ask him what just happened and Hugh blushes and says and explanation Hercules can't hear over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.  
   
Fifteen minutes later he realizes that it's because he didn't respond in English.  
   
Twenty minutes later he realizes that Hugh never told his friends where they're from.  
   
One minute after that he wonders if it's because he's ashamed.  
   
Three hours later all of Hugh's friends are gone and they have the longest conversation that they've had in a while, spoken in the first langauge they ever learned for the first time in a long time.  
   
Their parents get back and Hercules is blamed for the grap soda stain on the carpet, but he takes the fall for it because that's what brothers do.

_2010_

_Lafayette - 14_  
   
She's twelve.  
   
Lafayette is fourteen, meeting the girl who is supposedly to become their wife and she is twelve. It's only a two year age gap but still.  
   
They do not fall in love with her, don't want to. She's pretty and nice and smart beyond compare but she is not who Lafayette wants to be with for the rest of their life.  
   
Adrienne's mother doesn't like them, wants her daughter to grow up and find someone she loves before getting married off to the first person rich enough to ask for her hand.  
   
Lafayette agrees, wants the same thing for themselves but has no mother of their own to vouch for them.   
   
Her mother gives in, but insists the wedding be held off for two years so that her daughter is given the chance to properly fall in love with Lafayette before they are to marry.  
   
They have two years to get out of this.  
   
How are they going to do that?

_Hercules - 16_  
   
Elizabeth Sanders is dating a boy named William on the football team, and Hercules is heartbroken but at the same time he understands.  
   
Hercules finds William more attractive than he wants to admit, to the point where he finds himself dreaming about kissing him one night and wakes up sweating.  
   
Hercules forgets about that dream and tries to forget about Elizabeth and everything he ever liked about either of them and trick himself into thinking that it worked.  
   
One week later, he falls for a girl named Janet in his biology class, asks her out the week after that because he's learned his lesson and won't make that mistake again.  
   
Janet is nice and tastes like peppers when he kisses her. She tells him secrets about other people in her class and he wonders if he likes being provided with this information or not.  
   
One month after they get together, Janet cheats on him with Elizabeth's boyfriend and Elizabeth comes over his house with two containers of ice cream and they fall asleep together on his living room floor.

_Alexander - 15_  
   
It's been months since his cousin died, but he still finds himself looking down at his work papers and seeing the image of his cousin's body, bathed in his own blood, instead of what he's supposed to be working on.  
   
He's angry at Lytton for dying, doesn't care how insensitive he says it, but he understands.  
   
In his will, Alexander and his brother had been given nothing, but his girlfriend and their son walked away well off.  
   
Alexander understands that, the want to protect his family. His mother did it, but any inheritance they could have received went to paying their hospital bills and even after that they're in debt.  
   
His brother talks about leaving the country, and Alexander asks him with what money he plans to do it with.  
   
He's thought this through, in almost a million conceivable ways, but the truth is that they do not have the money. They both have jobs and they're both saving but even with their money combined it's not enough for even half of a chance out of here.  
   
His brother no longer talks about leaving the country, and Alexander doesn't speak to him about money anymore.

_John - 15_

John comes home with bruises covering his skin, his lip split, and his ribs feeling like someone just got a hammer and went to town. He spits up blood on their hardwood floors and knows his father is out of town so he can't do anything to him.  
   
He hadn't told anyone, but they found out anyway. Maybe it was a guess, because of something he did subconsciously.  
   
His mother supports him as he stumbles in, and she really shouldn't be because she's pregnant with John's fourth sibling and shouldn't be carrying something lighter than a bowl.  
   
"What happened?" she asks once he's set down on the couch.  
   
"They found out," he coughs, the taste of blood becoming sickening.  
   
His mother knows what he's talking about, the secret that both of them have kept has never gone away. John tells her everything, and that includes his drama about the boys in his class and how they're cute but also rude and weirdly obsessed with sex to the point of it being odd.  
   
"How? How did they find out?"  
   
"I don't, I don't know. I didn't tell them, they just saw me and they knew."  
   
His mother rushes around the house and gets him ice and everything else he would ever need. She sits there with him, her hand wrapped loosely around his and just breathes with him and even though it hurts him to do it, he does it anyway to make his mother feel better.  
   
His father comes home three days later when John is only half healed and has to look at him twice to realize anything is wrong.  
   
"Did you get in a fight?" He asks, disgusting excitement under the stern voice he uses.  
   
"Yes." A more accurate description of it would be that people fought him and he was just trying to walk home so that he can eat chocolate chip cookies until he passes out but he doesn't say that because who would ever.  
   
"Did you win?"  
   
John doesn't say anything, just smiles falsely at his father and nods. His father laughs, pulls him into a hug for the first time in eight years and John almost screams at how much his ribs hurt because of it.  
   
This is the first time John has ever gotten physically hurt by someone other than his father, and his father still finds a way to hurt him anyway.

_2012_

_Alexander - 17_  
   
There's a storm, flooding, so fucking loud in his ears that he can't hear anything else.  
   
Glass is shattering and people are screaming and water, so much water, is hitting against the outside walls of the house he's living in and it's lurching like it's about to fall over if it's hit one more time.  
   
His brother is somewhere in the house, he can hear him screaming over everything, or maybe it's just his voice in his head.

He hears his mother's voice, comforting him, his father telling him to just go to bed. He hears them screaming and he hears everyone else screaming and he hears so many voices it almost drowns out everything else going on around him.  
   
Drowning. It feels like he's drowning, like his lungs are filling up and he can't breathe. The world is slipping away from him as he falls into the cold darkness and this does not feel like it did when he was dying with his mother so what is it and why does it feel so much more painful than he remembers it being?  
   
The windows are being hit with rain so heavily that he can no longer see out of them, he's coming back into his own body as lighting strikes fierce in the sky.  
   
He goes outside when it's over and he almost screams.  
   
Bodies, so many bodies, thrown across the tops of houses and lying on the ground, bloated, blue. A mother screams in the middle of the street as she clutches her dead child to her chest.  
   
He writes about it, because it's what he knows how to do, it's all he can do. He writes and gets money for it, uses it to pay for his ticket out. He leaves a week after his brother goes off with a man who is going to teach him to be a carpenter.

This is a new beginning, one he thinks he needs after a lifetime of being held back.

_Lafayette - 16_  
   
It has been two years, and Lafayette still does not love her, but that's okay, because they have a plan.  
   
The morning of their wedding, the two of them begin a false argument outside of the church. It's brutal and neither of them mean a word they're saying but if it will help them call off this ceremony then they'll chance it.  
   
After Adrienne screams something about another woman and Lafayette yells back something about her not trusting them, they're separated for a long time and only brought back together to say goodbye to each other as the wedding has been cancelled and will not happen at any point in the near future.  
   
Adrienne's mother takes her away from Lafayette with a glare worthy of being fatal and Lafayette hopes that she never gives into marrying off her daughter to someone she doesn't love again.  
   
Lafayette returns home and goes to bed, grateful that they're alone.

_John - 16_  
   
"Something is wrong," John's mother says as his father walks her out the door to the hospital. She's in labor, and her father dismisses her because of it, but John doesn't. He tries to find out what she means, but she's out the door before she can get another word in.  
   
John packs all of his siblings into one of his father's fancy cars and drives to the hospital after his father calls him and tells him he has a sister but his mother isn't going to make it. Martha scolds him and tells him he shouldn't be driving when he only has his permit and John tells her to shut up because he can't handle the stress.  
   
He gets to see his mother before she dies, and she holds his hand like she did before and she looks exactly like she did when she had Martha except this time there's a lot more blood.  
   
"Take care of them, Jack," She heaves, and she's crying.  
   
"I will."  
   
"Don't, don't let him get to you. Protect them for me, protect them."  
   
"Please don't leave me."  
   
"I'm sorry, John, I can't stop it. Make sure Mary knows it isn't her fault, this isn't her fault."  
   
"Mom, please."  
   
"I love you, John, don't forget that."  
   
"I won't, I won't."  
   
Her heart stops beating, the monitor behind her flat lining. John screams, begging his mother to come back, pleading with her to just wake up.  
   
She's never going to wake up.

_Hercules - 18_  
   
Elizabeth is the first person to hug him after he graduates, her arms wrapping around his neck as she tells him how proud she is and he picks her up off of the ground and spins her around. She only steps away from him so that his family can hug him.  
   
Two days later, his graduation party is one of the best he's ever been to. All of his friends made it, and the cake he gets is like a piece of heaven slathered in whipped icing.  
   
Later that night, when everyone went home, Hercules is lyiing in his bed with Elizabeth half asleep beside him. He asks her what he should do after he graduates college, and she says no matter what he does, he'll be great. He says he'll be great as long as she's at his side and she doesn't say anything and Hercules doesn't know why.  
   
The day before Hercules goes off to college, Elizabeth breaks up with him and starts dating his next door neighbor.  
   
He doesn't know what he did.

_2015_

_Lafayette - 19_  
   
They snuck away from their country, from everything they've ever known, and are currently on a boat to America.  
   
It's not an enjoyable journey. They have an infestation of mosquitos on the ship, causing them to become covered in bites that they scratch at until they begin to bleed. Each day gets even more unbearable as Lafayette tries to figure out the impossible laws of the English language and they wish to be on some type of land, preferring America but would accept anything else at least for a while.  
   
Two weeks into their trip, they find out that there's a gender neutral pronoun in English that doesn't exist in French. They refer to themselves as it, and almost cry because of how right it sounds.

_John - 20_

_Alexander - 20_

_Hercules - 21_  
   
John stares at the man talking to Burr for roughly ten minutes before he actually realizes he's staring, and even then he doesn't look away.  
   
"What are you doing?" Hercules asks him, and John can't even answer because of how entrancing this man is or the fact that Hercules' voice sends shivers down his spine.  
   
"Staring."  
   
"At?"

"Him," John says, gesturing to the man.  
   
"Oh my god," Hercules whispers and John knows that he sees it too.  
   
"I'm gonna go talk to him."  
   
"Wait-"  
   
John walks away before Hercules can say anything else. He slings his arm around Burr's shoulder and he gasps like John had slapped him.  
   
"Who's your friend?" John questions him.  
   
"We are not fr-"  
   
"Alexander Hamilton," the man greets, reaching across Burr to shake his hand.  
   
The next morning, John wakes up in a bed that is not his with Alexander, and he knows he's not going to want to leave.

_2017_

_Hercules - 23_

_Lafayette - 21_  
   
They walk into Hercules' studio gracefully, heels clacking against the wood floor of his studio.  
   
Hercules looks up from what he's working on and is so astounded by them that he stabs himself in the fingertip with his needle by accident.  
   
"Fuck," he hisses, dropping the fabric and shaking his finger.  
   
"Are you alright?" They ask, rushing over to him and holding his finger in their hand.  
   
"Yeah, I'm fine, it's just prick."  
   
"How did you do that?"  
   
"You're very beautiful and I am very weak."  
   
He knows he shouldn't be doing this, because he's done it before and it didn't turn out well.

He's in love with Alex and John, and dating someone else isn't going to help him get over it.  
   
"Thank you," they mumble, turning away from him to hide their blush.  
   
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be flirting with you. I'm going through some stuff right now and it wouldn't be right."  
   
"It's fine, I know I am beautiful," they tell him.  
   
"You're certainly right about that." They raise their eyebrow at him.  
   
"Fuck, I did it again."  
   
"Yes, you did."   
   
They end up becoming friends, but Hercules doesn't stop flirting with them and he doesn't stop loving John and Alex, so the closer they get the more Hercules panics.  
   
He introduces Lafayette to Alex and John one day, and the dynamic that all four of them create is electric and unable to be stopped by any force that would ever attempt to.

_2018_

_Hercules - 24_

_John - 23_

_Alexander - 23_

_Lafayette - 22_  
   
They've all known each other for a year now, and the immense tension between them is noticeable now. It settles in between them and doesn't leave until one of them do.  
   
John and Alex seem to be the ones most oblivious to it due to the fact that they're together, they can just climb into their bed and do whatever they have to to forget about it, but Hercules and Lafayette know. They see it, clear as day, every single time they're together.

   
Last week, Alex kissed Lafayette on the cheek and they almost tipped over backwards on their heels. The day after, Alex had told Hercules about it and asked him if he knew what was going on, and Hercules almost tuck and rolled out of their car.  
   
Just yesterday, Hercules had accidentally ran into John and pinned him against their fridge. Hercules apologized, but John didn't, just stared at him and let Hercules stare back. Hercules stepped away, cleared his throat and went to his room. He stared at the ceiling for two hours after that to calm down.

Hercules and Lafayette pull Alex and John into the living room, shoving them onto the couch and standing in front of them.

"Do we have a plan for this?" Hercules asks, Lafayette just looks at him. They'd never discussed anything before this, so Hercules really isn't sure what exactly is going on right now.

"I'm in love with you, and Alex and John and you love all of us and we've known each other for a whole year and still haven't said anything. What do we need a plan for?" they say to him, not watching as John and Alex both look over at each other.

"You love us?" John questions them, and Lafayette looks at him, eyes squinted.

"Are you kidding? Of course I do. Where have you been for the past year?"

"Oh."  
   
"We love you too, he means," Alex says.  
   
"Yeah."

The four of them were born in different places, at different times, under different circumstances. They've lived through different things, seen things they'd rather forget, seen things they never want forget. They've been shaped by these events, but not so much as to ruin them, they are not what they've survived, they don't let themselves become that.   
   
Their lives started differently, but they will continue together.

As for how their lives will end, they'll just have to wait and see.

**Author's Note:**

> IT TOOK ME TWO DAYS TO WRITE THIS AND I ALSO LOST LIKE 2000 WORDS OF IT IM CRYING SO HARD
> 
> ALSO THE AGES ARE REALLY WEIRD BC OF THE WAY I WROTE IT JUST GO WITH IT


End file.
